*Not many items of interest out, though at least one long-awaited book is ready -

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Alice in Sunderland: Huh, it’s finally out. It seems writer/artist Bryan Talbot has been working on this thing, a whopping 328-page, 7 ½” x 11”, $29.95 full-color graphic novel, for as long as I can remember him working on anything new. It’s a so-called ‘dream documentary,’ appropriately on the history of both Alice Liddell & Lewis Carroll, of literary fame, and Sunderland, the municipality in the English northeast that's connected to them both. The book is also about many other things, and the narrative (which is structured as the performance of a variety show) apparently goes off in many different directions and many different visual styles, encompassing several periods in the 20th century history of comics while it’s at it. It was probably a good idea it just call it “An Entertainment” on the cover. The preview pages (scroll down) make a lot of it seem sort of text-heavy, with lots of narration over bits of digital collage. I’ve always rather liked Talbot’s works, even though just about all of them are flawed in their own ways, and there’s no doubt he’s a highly influential and adventurous force in British comics history - he also doesn’t put out a new 300+ page project every year, so admirers will obviously want to get this fast. From Dark Horse.

Oh Skin-nay! The Days of Real Sport: Here’s something I didn’t even know was being published until Chris Butcher started talking about it on his site - it’s a new vintage reprint thing from Drawn & Quarterly, a hardcover facsimile edition of a 1913 volume of verse and cartoons by poet Wilbur D. Nesbit and artist Clare Briggs, the latter being the obvious focal point of interest. Portraying a year in the life of wistful Midwestern small-town boyhood, with extras by Jeet Heer, $24.95. Briggs is only the latest in a long, long line of early newspaper comic legends that haven’t had much of anything in print, so this is probably worth flipping through.

Virulents: Hmm, this is a one-shot comic from Virgin about American and Indian troops battling terrorist vampire things in the desert. Just thought I’d inform the world. This week Virgin also has issue #4 (of 6) of the consistently better-than-expected Dave Stewart’s Walk-In, which, like all of these ‘famous name’ comics from Virgin, is actually written by somebody else, Jeff Parker specifically here.

Elephantmen #8: Ok, it’s actually coming out this week.

Gødland #17: Ditto.

Silent War #3 (of 6): That current Marvel Inhumans miniseries thing. I’m posting as a friendly reminder that Frazer Irving can draw very pretty.

Batman #664: Er, something about police corruption from Morrison & Kubert. Perhaps you’d be more interested in the trade collection of Batman: Snow, a Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight storyline from a while back, written by the creators of Chase, Dan Curtis Johnson & J.H. Williams III, with art by the late Seth Fisher - I’ve heard good things.

52 #47 (of 52): More endgame prep.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 1: Attack of the Mousers & Vol. 2: Out of the Shadows: God, I really am sort of in disbelief that the new TMNT movie performed so well last weekend, although I guess the competition wasn’t that fierce? I still wasn’t quite prepared. But obviously Titan Books was prepared for something, since now they have these two 96-page collections of the seven-issue Peter David-written Dreamwave incarnation of the comic ready to roll. Oh preparation!